Collection

PROVENANCE PROJECT

Over the past twenty years art museums have become much more conscious of the importance of understanding the previous ownership of works in their collections. This is especially the case with respect to works of art that might have been illegally obtained by the National Socialist government in Germany between 1932 and 1946. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center continues to research the history of its collections and adheres to the professional guidelines in the museum field by publishing those works of art for which we cannot determine with a substantial degree of accuracy where the works were during that Nazi period. In addition it is also an industry requirement that we publish any Western or Pre-Columbian antiquities if we are not sure they were in the United States before 1973. Having an interrupted provenance does not by itself indicate an illegal chapter in an object’s history, but signals that we are openly announcing the fact pending further research.